Assassin

F. Bone Jesse

Description

In this eerie tale from the golden age of science fiction, a race of extraterrestrials worms its way into the good graces of humankind by showering Earth's residents with a barrage of peace offerings and extravagant gifts. But does their seemingly boundless generosity conceal a darker motive?

Sujets

• Science fiction

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781776671892
• Langue: English

Extrait

ASSASSIN
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JESSE F. BONE
 
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Assassin First published in 1958 Epub ISBN 978-1-77667-189-2 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77667-190-8 © 2016 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
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The aliens wooed Earth with gifts, love, patience and peace. Who could resist them? After all, no one shoots Santa Claus!
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The rifle lay comfortably in his hands, a gleaming precision instrument that exuded a faint odor of gun oil and powder solvent. It was a perfect specimen of the gunsmith's art, a semi-automatic rifle with a telescopic sight—a precisely engineered tool that could hurl death with pinpoint accuracy for better than half a mile.
Daniel Matson eyed the weapon with bleak gray eyes, the eyes of ahunter framed in the passionless face of an executioner. His blunthands were steady as they lifted the gun and tried a dry shot at animaginary target. He nodded to himself. He was ready. Carefully helaid the rifle down on the mattress which covered the floor of hisfiring point, and looked out through the hole in the brickwork to thenarrow canyon of the street below.
The crowd had thickened. It had been gathering since early morning,and the growing press of spectators had now become solid walls ofpeople lining the street, packed tightly together on the sidewalks.Yet despite the fact that there were virtually no police, the crowddid not overflow into the streets, nor was there any of the pushingcrowding impatience that once attended an assemblage of this sort.Instead there was a placid tolerance, a spirit of friendly good will,an ingenuous complaisance that grated on Matson's nerves like thescreeching rasp of a file drawn across the edge of thin metal. Heshivered uncontrollably. It was hard to be a free man in a world ofslaves.
It was a measure of the Aztlan's triumph that only a bare half-dozenpolice 'copters patrolled the empty skies above the parade route. Thealiens had done this—had conquered the world without firing a shot orspeaking a word in anger. They had wooed Earth with understandingpatience and superlative guile—and Earth had fallen into their handslike a lovesick virgin! There never had been any real opposition, andwhat there was had been completely ineffective. Most of those who hadopposed the aliens were out of circulation, imprisoned in correctionalinstitutions, undergoing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation! a six bitword for dehumanizing. When those poor devils finished their treatmentwith Aztlan brain-washing techniques, they would be just like thesesheep below, with the difference that they would never be able to beanything else. But these other stupid fools crowding the sidewalks,waiting to hail their destruction—these were the ones who must besaved. They—not the martyrs of the underground, were the importantpart of humanity.
A police 'copter windmilled slowly down the avenue toward his hidingplace, the rotating vanes and insect body of the craft starklyoutlined against the jagged backdrop of the city's skyline. He laughedsoundlessly as the susurrating flutter of the rotor blades beatoverhead and died whispering in the distance down the long canyon ofthe street. His position had been chosen with care, and was invisiblefrom air and ground alike. He had selected it months ago, and hadtaken considerable pains to conceal its true purpose. But after todayconcealment wouldn't matter. If things went as he hoped, the placemight someday become a shrine. The idea amused him.
Strange, he mused, how events conspire to change a man's career. Sevenyears ago he had been a respected and important member of that fardifferent sort of crowd which had welcomed the visitors from space.That was a human crowd—half afraid, wholly curious, jostling, noisy,pushing—a teeming swarm that clustered in a thick disorderly ringaround the silver disc that lay in the center of the InternationalAirport overlooking Puget Sound. Then—he could have predicted hiscareer. And none of the predictions would have been true—for noneincluded a man with a rifle waiting in a blind for the game toapproach within range....
The Aztlan ship had landed early that July morning, dropping silentlythrough the overcast covering International Airport. It settled gentlyto rest precisely in the center of the junction of the three mainrunways of the field, effectively tying up the transcontinental andtransoceanic traffic. Fully five hundred feet in diameter, the giantship squatted massively on the runway junction, cracking and bucklingthe thick concrete runways under its enormous weight.
By noon, after the first skepticism had died, and the unbelievable TVpictures had been flashed to their waiting audience, the crowd beganto gather. All through that hot July morning they came, increasing bythe minute as farther outlying districts poured their curious into theAirport. By early afternoon, literally hundreds of millions of eyeswere watching the great ship over a world-wide network of televisionstations which cancelled their regular programs to give their viewersan uninterrupted view of the enigmatic craft.
By mid-morning the sun had burned off the overcast and was shiningwith brassy brilliance upon the squads of sweating soldiers from FortLewis, and more sweating squads of blue-clad police from themetropolitan area of Seattle-Tacoma. The police and soldiery quicklyformed a ring around the ship and cleared a narrow lane around theperiphery, and this they maintained despite the increasing pressure ofthe crowd.
The hours passed and nothing happened. The faint creaking and snappingsounds as the seamless hull of the vessel warmed its space-chilledmetal in the warmth of the summer sun were lost in the growingimpatience of the crowd. They wanted something to happen.